


Cold and Tired and All Alone

by apple9131999



Series: The States of America [17]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Family, Family Feels, Nurses, Vietnam War, War Camps, injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-07
Updated: 2016-05-07
Packaged: 2018-06-06 23:40:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 869
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6774922
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apple9131999/pseuds/apple9131999
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Teardrops fell on her note when I read the things she wrote</p><p>She said, "We miss you, we love you come on home."</p><p>Now I'm 500 miles away from home."</p><p>(Wars are hard to fight, especially when you can't remember why you're fighting them).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold and Tired and All Alone

**Author's Note:**

> Cracker box- field ambulances  
> zulu- casualty report  
> (freedom) bird- aircraft (going back to the states)  
> white mice- friendly vietnamese soldiers (their uniforms were white)
> 
> Title and summary from Bobby Bare's 500 Miles

_April 12, 1966- Cam My, Phuoc Tuy_

* * *

The _Huey_ touched down in the middle of the field. The door gunner yanked the side door open and Maryland jumped out with the other nurse by her side. Harriett Mullen, twenty-four years old, just out of college, born and raised in Nebraska, had accompanied Maryland on many missions since the beginning of the war.

Her only fault was that she tended to baby Maryland, who had only managed to get eighteen years out of Alfred when she asked for her new ID.

She helped Harriett get the nearest wounded into their bird, seeing the scurrying figures of the other nurses in the other birds amid the new and old soldiers settling into base. Just after they had reached full capacity- Harriett was doing quick assessment of a man they had picked up with a rather nasty gunshot wound in his shoulder- Maryland turned around, lifting her cap and wiped the sweat off of her forehead, regardless of the chill of the morning.

New York was right behind her.

She jumped a little bit and scoffed at her brother. “Give a gal a little more warning, huh? Hotshot?”

New York’s brown face was still and just as scowly as it always was. “Anything?”

“We haven’t heard anything,” she said sobering immediately. “I’ve only gotten radio-silence- no zulu, no wounded, no nothing.” She dug into her pockets and pulled out the letters she had been sent to show him the one of Maya’s baseball team. “They won their game,” she said softly.

He reached out a trembling hand and took the photo- it was creased and bent from being passed from hand to hand between the twenty-eight of them. She watched the frown lines on his face ease slightly as he traced their sister’s smiling face. As she hopped back onto the _Huey_ , she shouted, “Make sure Alex gets that next or Lauren!”

He nodded as he stepped back, an arm over his hat as the _Huey_ took off.

* * *

_April 14, 1966- American Base Camp, Vietnam_

* * *

She’s just managed to get a gentleman settled, who is in considerable pain and really, she wouldn’t beget anyone with his injuries from screaming as he had, but she did have other patients, who he was throwing into a frenzy with his cries, to think about, when Alfred walked into the infirmary. She set down the clipboard and looked at him, fists on her hips.

He shook his head as he approached her.

“Caleb wanted me to give this to you,” he said as he passed a just as well-worn photograph as she had given New York two days past. It was of Mississippi, an arm around Alabama’s neck, their curly hair smooshed together between their heads. There was a half-eaten cake in front of the two, a few wine glasses in front of them, ranging from full to half-full.

“His birthday was last week,” she said softly, fingering the edges. Alfred nodded, his face smeared with dirt. “Who does this go to next?”

“Robert or Elizabeth, whoever you see first.”

She nodded and then held out her arms. “Hug? You can spare a moment to give me a hug, can’t you?”

He could. It was a great hug.

* * *

_May 11, 1970_

* * *

She had just finished her dinner when Harriett nudged her arm. “Cracker box just came in.”

Maryland nodded. “All right. I’ll be there. Is it big?”

“Not so much as the last one.”

“We’re running out of beds.”

“Yeah,” Harriett said softly.

California was in the back of ambulance when it pulled up, scowling and chewing on her tongue as she watched the land pass. She managed a short smile to Maryland as she hopped off and began helping unload people from the back of the car.

The majority of the people they were ushering in were Vietnamese. Maryland felt herself frowning as she helped them in- California looked pained as though these were all her boys, but they couldn’t be- they were wearing white mice uniforms.

When the other nurses had taken over most of the work, the two sisters stood side by side, silently watching the wounded.

“Chung Lien is getting angrier at Al,” California said softly, her blue eyes stuck on a bed with the sheets pulled up over the body resting on it.

“Bobbie hasn’t answered my letter. He hasn’t been talking to anyone.”

There was a very long silence. “Caleb has been missing since the seventh. Brandon and Jackson are, surprisingly, not in hysterics. I think he stole home on a freedom bird.”

The next silence was not long. “It wouldn’t surprise me. Thomas has wanted to go home since we found Aidan.”

California waited a moment and then pulled out a dust crusted photo from her muddied pants. “I have to go back out there, but here. Diego wanted me to give that to you.”

It was a picture of Texas, holding a puppy with a bow around its neck, her mouth open, curled hair frizzing around her head. It looked like Arizona was in the background laughing at something, but there was a convenient dirt blob on her head, so it could have also been Oklahoma.

Maryland smiled.


End file.
